The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-11-17
TALMAGE'S SERMON,
The Weekly Disoourses Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.
Subject concord and Dis
cOrd.''

,ehen the morning stars sang togetherS"-
Job xxxviii, u, Z.
We have all seen the ceremony at the lay,
Ing Of tho cornerstone of church, asylum or
Masonic temple. Into the hollow Of the
stono were placed scrolls Of history and i'm
prrtant documents to be suggestive if one or
two hundred Years after the building should
De destroyed by fire or torn down. We re-
memember the silver trowel or iron hammer
that smote the square piece of granite into
sanetity. We remember some venerable man
who presided, welding the trowel or ham
mer. We remember also the music as the
choir stood on the scattered stones and
timber OF the building about to be con-
structed. The leaves of the notebooks fut-
tered in the wind and were turned over with
a great rustling, and we remember how the
bass, baritone, tSnor, contralto and soprano
voices commingled They had for many DAYS
been rehearsing the special programme, that
1t might be worthy Of the cornerstone laying.
In my text the poet of Uz calls us to
grander ceremony-the laying of the founda-
ton of this great temple of world. The
corner stone was a block of light and the
trowel was of celestial crystal All about
aud on the embankments of cloud stood the
angelic choristers unrolling their librettos
OF overture, and other worlds clapped shin
ing eeymbals while the ceremony went on,
ard God, the archi ct, by stroke of light
after stroke of light, dedicated this great
cathedral of world, with mountains for
pillars, and sky for frescoed ceiling, and
towering felds for floors, and sunrise and
midnight aurora for upholstery. Who laid
the corner stone thereof, when tine morning
stars sang together."
complete cadence, an unbrpken dithyramb a
musical portfolio The great sheet of i'm
mensity had been spread out, and written on
1t were the stars, the smaller of them minims,
the larger of them sustained notes. The
meteors marked the staccato passages, the
Whole heavens gamut, with all sounds, into
nations and modulations, the space between
the worlds a musical interval, trembling of
stellar light a quaver, the thunder bass
clef, the wind among trees treble clef
That is the way God made al things per-
feet harmony.
But one day harp string snapped in the
great orchestra. One day a voice sounded
out Of tuns. One day discord, harsh and
terrific, grated upon tine glorious antiphony.
1t was sin that made the dissonance, and that
harsh discord has been sounding through the
| centuries All the work of Christians, and
philanthropists, and reformers OF all ages, is
to Stop that discord and get all uhings back
into the perfect harmony which was heard at
the laying Of the cornerstone when the
| morning stars sang together. Before l get
through, if | am divinely helped will make
it plain that sin is discord and Righteousness
is harmony.
That things in general are out of tune is as
plain as to a musicians ear is the unhappy
clash OF clarioneJ and bassoon in an orches-
tral rendering.
The worlds health out of tune: Weak lung
and the atmosphere in c,ilision, disordered
| eve and monday light in quarrel, rheumatic
limb and damp weather in struggle, neural
| gias, and pneumonias, and consumptions,
| and epilepsies in focks swoop upon neighbor-
hoods and cities. Where you find one person
with sound throat, and keen eyesight, and
alert ear, and easy respiration, and regular
| pulsation, and supple limb, and prime diges-
tion, and steady nerves, you find hundred
who have to be very careful becaus this, or
that, or the other physical function is dsor-
dered
The human intellect out of tune: The
! Judgment wrongly swerved, or the memory
leaky, or the will weak, or the temper in
(; fammable, and the well-balanced mind excep-
! tional Dome itic life out of tune Not only
here and there conjuga outbreak of incom-
patibility of temper through the divorce
courts or a filial outbreak about a fathers
J will through the Surrogate's Court, or case
OF wfe.heating or husband poisoning through
the criminal courts, but thousands of fam
lies with June outside and January within
Society out OF tune; Labor and capital;
their hands on each others throats. Spirit of
caste keeping those down in the social scale
| in struggle to get up, and putting those
who are up in anxiety lest they have to come
down. No wonder the old pianoforte of So
ciety is all out of tune, when hypocrisy, and
lying, and subterfuge, and double dealing,
and sycophancy, and chariatanism, and re-
venge have for 5000 years being banging
away at the keys and stamping the pedals.
On all sides there is perpetual shipwreck
of harmonies Nations in discord Without
realizing it, SO wrong is the feeling of nation
for nation that the symbols chosen are fierc;
and destructive. In this country, where our
skies are full of robins and doves and morn
ing larks, we have for our national symbol the
fierce and filthy eagle, as immoral bird as
can be found in all the pathological cata
logues. In Great Britain, where they have
lambs and fallow deer, their symbol is the
merciless lion. In Russia, where from be
tween her frozen north and blooming south
oil kindly beasts dwell, they choose the growl
ing bear; and in the worlds heraldry favor
ite figure is the dragon, which is winged
serpent, ferocious and dreadful And so font
is the world of contention that we climb out
through the heavens and baptize one of the
other planets with the spirit OF battle, ant
call it Mars, after the god of war, and we giv'
to the eighth sign of the zodiac the nam'
of the scorpion, a creature which is chiefly
celebrated for its deadly sting. But. after
all, these symtols are expressive OF the
way nation feels toward nation. Discord
wide as the continent and bridging the seas
suppose you have noticed how warmly il
love dry goods stores are with other dry
goods stores, and how highly grocerymer
think of the sugars of the grocerymen on tn,
same block. And in what a eulogistic way
alopathic and homeopathic doctors speak o
each other, and how ministers will sometime
put ministers on that beautiful cooking in
strument which the English call spit, al
i.s,;s roller with spikes on it. and turned by &
crank before a hot fire, and then if the min
. ister being roasted cries out against it. tn,
men who are turning him say: "Hush
brother we are turning this spit for tn
, glory Of God and the good of your soul, an6
you must be quiet while We close the servic
with:
"Blest be the ties that binds
Our hearts in Christian love-"
The earth is diametered and circumfer
snced with dscord and the music that wa
rendered at ths laying of the worlds corne
stone, when the morning stars sang together
is not heard now; and though here and there
| from this and that part of society, and from
this and that part of the earth, there come
up thrilling solo of love. or a warble o
worship, or a sweet duet of patience, the.
are drowned out by a discord that shake
! the earth.
Paul says: "The whole creation groaneth !;
and while the nightingale, and the wood
lark, and the canary, and the plover, some
times sing so sweety that their notes hav
been written out in musical notation, and
, is found that the cuckoo sings in the key O
d. and that the cormorant is basso in th
> winged choir. yet sportsman's gun and tn
autumn al blast often leave them ruffled an
bleeding, or dead in meadow or forest Pau
was right, for the groan in nature drown
out the prima donnas of the sky.
Tartini, the great musical composer
: dreamed one night that he made a contrac
with Satan, the latter to be ever in the CON
poser's service But one night he handed I
Satan a violin, on which Diabolus playe
such sweet music that the composer wa
awakened by the emotion and tried to repre-
duce the sounds, AMI therefrom was write
, Tartinis most famous piece, entitled th
'Devirs sonata dream ingenious bu
faulty, for all meloiy descends from heaver
, and only discorls Gs end from hell. All hs
treds, feuds, controversies. backbitings an
revenges are the DEVILS sonata. are diaboli
; fugue, are demoniac phantasy, are gran
march of doom, are allegro OF perdltion-
But If in this world things in general al
out of tune to our frail ear, how much NOR
so to ears angelic and deific.. 1t takes
skilled artist fully to appreciate disagreemeI
of sound. Many have no capacity to detee
defect Of musical execution, and, thoas
there were in one bar as many offenS'
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